The Art Of Changing Up

My first article dedicated to a single pitch. Probably the single most effective pitch in baseball when used well, and the most detrimental when muffed. The changeup, some guys have one that the bottom will fall out on you faster than you can blink. Some have some crazy screwball like action to theirs. The one common theme between all the good ones though, they make a hitter look silly from being too early. Who hasn’t had that feeling of being early on a changeup, I have. If you’re looking for a fastball and you get the changeup and the pitcher has a good one, then you’re not going to realize that it’s a changeup until it’s too late much of the time. It’s almost unfair when a guy has a fastball changeup combo where there is a good speed differential and such a similar release point, spin and sameness to each ball. Timing is the most important part of hitting and if a pitcher is to mess with that, he will succeed a lot more. Not that pitchers don’t succeed enough, sometimes getting hitters out more than 2/3 of the time. This pitch though, the changeup, if the hitter knows it’s coming, and has timed it correctly, well you better hope it’s not over the plate, because he should be taking a 360 foot trip around the bases. How do you have success with the changeup? Like I previously mentioned, you want the release point and mechanics to be the same as the fastball as to not alert the hitter to the fact that you are trying to make him look a fool. You want to use the same grip as your fastball, that is, if you throw primarily a 4 seam fastball, throw a 4 seam changeup. The same applies to a 2 seam fastball changeup combo as well. You want the hitter to think it’s a fastball as to mess up his timing. If you want to see this done right, go look up some videos of Johan Santana, Pedro Martinez, Shawn Marcum, Dallas Braden, or John Danks. All possess terrific changeups. They pull strings like Gepetto. And if you watch closely they all have different changeups, that are successful for different reasons. Either the velocity differential between their fastball, their superb movement, or their ability to throw it with the same exact motion as their fastball, or a combination of these. Go learn the changeup today; it is useful to say the least. Now watch vintage Pedro dominate guys. Not all but a bunch of changeups in this clip. Check it.